Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Ruach of God

Alice C. Linsley

In the ancient world the order of creation was viewed as hierarchical and fixed. This was based on the observation of patterns in nature. In the time of Abraham's Kushite ancestors, the observation of the fixed movement of the heavenly bodies was done by a caste of priests. They noted the constellations have a clocklike movement, the seasons are linked to the 12 lunar cycles, and the Sun directly over head marks mid-day. The stars also suggested a fixed order in creation, as did the winds associated with the breath or spirit of God.

The ancient Afro-Asiatics perceived boundaries in the nature order. The boundaries were fixed within the hierarchy or pyramid of kinds. The Biblical "kind" is not synonymous with the word "species." Because of mutation and adaptation there are many more creatures now than there are kinds. Kinds refers to the original essence of a created entity (think Plato's eternal Forms). Creationists believe the essence of an entity never disappears. The Biblical "kind" represents an essentialist worldview.

The Afro-Asiatic priests saw boundaries in earth's geometry. This is reflected in the wisdom literature of Job, Proverbs and Ben Sira. From the tops of high mountains they noted the curvature of the Earth at dawn and dust. They "oriented" themselves by facing east as the Sun rose. They conceived of the cosmos as God's sacred pyramid or temple. As the Sun rose, God entered the temple from the east. As the Sun set, God left the temple toward the west. Rulers were buried in pyramids with the hope that they would rise with the Sun and lead their people in procession to immortality. St. Paul refers to this belief when he writes about how Christ rose from the grave, leading captives in his train. (Ephesians 4:7-9)

This is the symbolism of the sand scarab which comes out of the sand when the Sun rises and returns to the sand as night approaches. The sand scarab represents the Sun's journey and repose in death. The female sand beetle lays her eggs in the sand and when the eggs hatch, she is no longer, because she gives her body to be eaten by her newborn young (cf. Jesus' words, "This is my Body given for you...").

For Abraham's Horite ancestors, the Sun and the scarab spoke to them of their deity, HR (Horus in Greek). He was regarded with his father Ra as the marker of boundaries. Horo (oros in Greek) refers to boundaries. From horo come the English words harmony, hour,horizon and horoscope. Today "horoscope" connotes astrology, but the word originally meant observer of the hours, from hora (time or hour) and skopos (observer or watcher). Horite priests were ardent observers of the heavens and thought about the cosmos in terms of divinely established boundaries and celestial patterns.

In the time of Abraham's Nilotic ancestors, the priests of Horus (called "Horites" in the Bible) were dedicated to observation of the planets and constellations. They believed that the pattern of the heavens was mirrored on earth. They observed that the planets and the constellations have an orderly clock-like movement and they perceived as that being the same order on earth. They conceived of this order as fixed and established by the generative force that makes existence possible (logos,ruach, wisdom). The Horite priests were the known earliest astronomers and it is likely that horo is a reference to their celestial archetypes surrounding Horus, the son of Ra, born to Hathor-Meri. Hathor-Meri's animal totem was a cow. She is shown at the Dendura Temple holding her newborn son in a manger or stable.

The Horites were devotees of HR (Hor, Hur, Har or Horus) whose mother Hathor-Meri conceived miraculously by the overshadowing of the Sun (the Creator's emblem). Horus is the archetype by which Abraham's descendants would recognize Jesus as the promised Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15). His authentication was His rising from the dead on the third day, in accordance with Horite expectation. As St. Augustine noted, the Egyptians took great care in the burial of their dead and never practiced cremation, as in the religions that seek to escape physical existence. Abraham's ancestors believed in the resurrection of the body and awaited a deified king who would rise from the grave and deliver his people from death.

Horus controlled the wind (ruach). The Harmattan trade wind which blows from the northeast and east across the western Sahara was named for Horus. The Nilotic peoples were probably the first in invent the sail because the prevailing wind blows south while the Nile (Hapi) flows north. Horus was invoked to send favorable wind. The four winds sometimes appeared as birds at the four quarters of the heavens announcing the accession of Horus' deified ruler on earth. On the walls of Amenemhat's burial chamber at Hawara Horus is depicted at the cardinal points and associated with the resurrection of the ruler.

Canopic jars showing the 4 forms of Horus

At the north he is Horus the dog-headed (a warrior); at the east he is Horus the jackal-headed (a judge); at the south he is Horus the Man (God's message in the flesh) and at the west he is Horus the falcon-headed. In the Pyramid Texts these four are called the "Four Spirits." These coincide with Sirius (dog) and the Pole Star (jackel). The Pole Star represents "the power of stability fixed at the center of the universe." This is why Horus as jackel is seen at the center of the Dendura planisphere. Horus the Man is the "dark Sun" or Mercury. He is nearest the Sun, but visible only at night. Horus the falcon is he who perches "upon the ramparts of the house of him of the hidden name." He flies with the Sun to west, as is evident in this stone relief from Angkor Wat showing Horus as a falcon perches upon the mast of Ra's solar boat:

Angkor is derived from Ankh Hor, meaning Life to Horus!

Consider how Horus, the archetype of Christ, describes himself in the Coffin texts (passage 148):

"I am Horus, the great Falcon upon the ramparts of the house of him of the hidden name. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. I have removed my place beyond the powers of Set, the foe of my father Osiris. No other god could do what I have done. I have brought the ways of eternity to the twilight of the morning. I am unique in my flight. My wrath will be turned against the enemy of my father Osiris and I will put him beneath my feet in my name of 'Red Cloak'." (Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt by R.T. Rundle Clark, p. 216)

Here we find the words of Psalm 110:1, a messianic reference: The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."

Horus and the Winds

In the ancient world, the earth below was perceived as a mirror of the celestial order above. The cosmological significance ot the four quarters of the winds - north, east, south and west - are apparent in Homer's writings. The quarters were divided again to configure an 8-point order for the winds know to the Greeks after Homer. By the time of Eratosthenes (c. 276 – 195 BC) a 12-point wind configuration had emerged, but the 8-point configuration was used again in the time of Andronicus of Kyrrhos in the first century BC. Around the top of the Tower of Winds that he designed 8 winds are named: Boreas (N), Kaikias (NE), Eurus (E), Apeliotes (SE), Notus (S), Livas (SW), Zephyrus (W), and Skiron (NW). The North, Northeast, Northwest and East are associated with men (masculine principle) and the Southwest, West, South and Southeast are associated with women (the feminine principle). This suggests the binary influence of the earlier Afro-Asiatics.

The Horologion

Andronicus' tower is called the "Horologion." Here again we see the root horo. Abraham's Nilotic Proto-Saharan ancestors were the first that we know of to associate the wind with the divine generative force. Ruacheloyim means spirit, breath, wind, movement of God. The association of wind with Horus is seen also in the word harmattan, referring to the dry wind that seasonally blows across the Sahara.

Ancient towers and temples reflect the cosmology of their builders. The differing geometric shapes of the temples of the Horite Sabians (Afro-Arabian Dedanites) associated the hexagon with Saturn, the triangle with Jupiter, the rectangle with Mars, the square with the Sun, the octagon with the Moon, and a triangle within a quadrangle with Venus.

Fixed Boundaries in Genetics

The word horotely is used to describe the boundaries of evolutionary change for a given group of plants or animals. The term is rarely used today since is implies fixed boundaries between "kinds" (to use the Biblical term). This is not a popular idea among those who believe that chimps and humans have a common ancestor because they have similar anatomical and genetic structure, or that nurse sharks and camels have a common ancestor because they have a similar antigen receptor protein structure.

The Darwinian theory of common ancestry of all living organisms still requires fixed boundaries. Human only reproduce humans and have done so from at least 3.6 million years ago. There are fixed boundaries within the DNA code.While the similarity of humans to primates may suggest a common origin, this common ancestor isn't known to have actually existed. It is the creation of artists who draw images for biology books.

There are now enough fossils recovered in Hadar, Ethiopia and in Cameroon to recontruct a picture of Lucy and her people. They were clearly human and not apes although the artists drawings persist in showing them as hairy and apelike. For example, complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis was discovered at Hadar that shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans."

When Jeremy DeSilva studied the anatomy of chimps and compared his findings with the anatomical structure of the ankle joint, the tibia and the talus of fossil "hominins" between 4.12 million to 1.53 million years, he discovered that all of the hominin ankle joints resembled those of modern humans rather than those of apes. Chimpanzees flex their ankles 45 degrees from normal resting position. This makes it possible for apes to climb trees with great ease. While walking, humans flex their ankles a maximum of 20 degrees. The human ankle bones are quite distinct from those of apes, and apparently have been from the beginning. In other words, though there are anatomical and genetic similarities upon which to group humans and chimps in the same genus, the two have distinctly different essences. In the essentialist view, similarities cannot be regarded as proof of common ancestors. Common ancestors can only be possible where a creature reproduces it own kind.

2 comments:

Your article on Ruash of God, was aptly researched. Ruath= bull in Dho'Luo. It can be applied to a man who exudes great power,strength of spirit or resolve.Just as in Hebrew Ruosh= Ruoth(Luo) for king or head﻿